With advances in technology, an increasing number of circuit elements have been integrated into devices, such as integrated circuits (ICs). Furthermore, a growing number of devices, such as ICs, or subsystems, have been integrated into products. With developments such as the Internet of Things (IoT), portable or mobile products, such as cellular phones, smart phones, and the like, this trend is expected to continue.
The growing number of circuit elements, devices, subsystems, etc., has also resulted in a corresponding complexity of the type of power architectures used in the products that include such components. In some applications, products operate from a variety of types of power, such as battery power, AC mains, or other sources. Typically, a regulator is used to provide power for the product from a single an input voltage, and is not optimized to supply the appropriate output current for various mode of operation, i.e., it has less efficiency in one or more modes of operation (with corresponding output current) than in the mode (with the corresponding output current) for which it is designed to supply power. In other words, it has too much current overhead to be a practical, efficient source of regulated power in various modes of operation corresponding to a relatively large range of output current.
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